Best practice & research. Clinical anaesthesiology
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Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol · Mar 2007
ReviewUseful adjuvants for postoperative pain management.
Adjuvants are compounds which by themselves have undesirable side-effects or low potency but in combination with opioids allow a reduction of narcotic dosing for postoperative pain control. Adjuvants are needed for postoperative pain management due to side-effects of opioid analgesics, which hinder recovery, especially in the increasingly utilized ambulatory surgical procedures. NMDA antagonists have psychomimetic side-effects at high doses, but at moderate doses do not cause stereotypic behavior but allow reduction in opioid dose to obtain better pain control. ⋯ Gabapentin-like compounds have low potency against acute pain, but in combination with opioids allow a reduction in opioid dose with improved analgesia. Corticosteroids may have only a limited role as adjuvants while acetylcholine esterase inhibitors may have too many side-effects. Newer adjuvants will be needed to reduce opioid dose and concomitant side-effects, even more as same day surgeries become more routine.
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Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol · Mar 2007
ReviewThe impact of opioid-induced hyperalgesia for postoperative pain.
Clinical evidence suggests that--besides their well known analgesic activity - opioids can increase rather than decrease sensitivity to noxious stimuli. Based on the observation that opioids can activate pain inhibitory and pain facilitatory systems, this pain hypersensitivity has been attributed to a relative predominance of pronociceptive mechanisms. Acute receptor desensitization via uncoupling of the receptor from G-proteins, upregulation of the cAMP pathway, activation of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)-receptor system, as well as descending facilitation, have been proposed as potential mechanisms underlying opioid-induced hyperalgesia. ⋯ Brief exposures to micro-receptor agonists induce long-lasting hyperalgesic effects for days in rodents, and also in humans large-doses of intraoperative micro-receptor agonists were found to increase postoperative pain and morphine consumption. Furthermore, the prolonged use of opioids in patients is often associated with a requirement for increasing doses and the development of abnormal pain. Successful strategies that may decrease or prevent opioid-induced hyperalgesia include the concomitant administration of drugs like NMDA-antagonists, alpha2-agonists, or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), opioid rotation or combinations of opioids with different receptor/selectivity.
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Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol · Mar 2007
ReviewThe clinical role of NMDA receptor antagonists for the treatment of postoperative pain.
Recent advances in the understanding of postoperative pain have demonstrated its association with sensitization of the central nervous system (CNS) which clinically elicits pain hypersensitivity. N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors play a major role in synaptic plasticity and are specifically implicated in CNS facilitation of pain processing. ⋯ However, the mechanisms underlying ketamine anti-hyperalgesic effect are not totally understood, and neither is the relationship between central sensitization and the risk of developing residual pain after surgery. This chapter examines the role of low doses of ketamine as an adjuvant drug in current perioperative pain management and questions the anti-hyperalgesic mechanisms involved.
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Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol · Mar 2007
ReviewPostoperative pain treatment for ambulatory surgery.
One of the most significant changes in surgical practice during the last two decades has been the growth of ambulatory surgery. Adequate postoperative analgesia is a prerequisite for successful ambulatory surgery. Recent studies have shown that large numbers of patients suffer from moderate to severe pain during the first 24-48 hr. ⋯ However, in the ambulatory setting many patients suffer from pain at home in spite of multimodal analgesic regimens. Sending patients home with perineural, incisional, and intra-articular catheters is a new and evolving area of postoperative pain management. Current evidence suggests that these techniques are effective, feasible and safe in the home environment if appropriate patient selection routines and organization for follow-up are in place.
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Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol · Mar 2007
ReviewPROSPECT: evidence-based, procedure-specific postoperative pain management.
Existing general guidelines for perioperative pain management do not consider procedure-specific differences in analgesic efficacy or applicability of a given analgesic technique. For the clinician, an evidence-based, procedure-specific guideline for perioperative pain management is therefore desirable. This chapter reviews the methodology and results of ⋯ a public web site (www.postoppain.org) which provides information and recommendations for evidence-based procedure-specific postoperative pain management.